Myanmar junta takes aim at latest Rambo movie

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Police in Myanmar have given DVD
hawkers strict orders not to stock the new Rambo movie, which
features the Vietnam War veteran taking on the former Burma's
ruling military junta, a Yangon resident told Reuters on
Friday.

Despite the prohibition, pirated copies of the movie are
widely available on the streets of the former capital, where it
is fast becoming a talking point among a population eager to
shake off 45 years of military rule.

"People are going crazy with the quote 'Live for nothing,
die for something'," one resident said, referring to the
tagline of the fourth Rambo installment, which opened in the
United States this week.

Even though it received lukewarm reviews, it is likely to
be a sure-fire hit with opponents of the junta, with some even
hoping it could spur a change of regime in the impoverished
southeast Asian nation.

"This movie could fuel the sentiment of Myanmar people to
invite American troops to help save them from the junta," one
Yangon resident told Reuters by e-mail.

In the movie, John Rambo, played by Hollywood superstar
Sylvester Stallone, comes out of retirement in Bangkok to save
a group of Christian missionaries taken captive by troops in
the jungles of eastern Myanmar.

As with previous Rambo films, it is short on plot and long
on blood and guts -- although viewers appear to think it is all
relative.

"Rambo acted very cruelly, but his cruelty is nothing
compared to that of the military junta," a Myanmar student in
Thailand, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.